Bloodlines
by 177624601
Summary: My first Silverwing fanfiction. Not long after Shade wakes from his first hibernation, his brothers go missing, presumed dead. What happens when they return years later? Please R&R. Enjoy!
1. Forest Ghosts

A/N: I got the idea when I read that, even though Shade was promised by Ariel that he'd meet his brothers in "Silverwing", they are never even mentioned again in any of the books. Here's my explanation as to why.

The frost was beginning to lessen. The last of the colony had roused from their slumber three nights ago. Soon the males would leave the females and young at Tree Haven and head to Stone Hold, their roost from spring to autumn. Silent as ghosts, a cluster of silverwings consisting of four brothers and their leader flitted through the diamond-speckled ebony sky. "Hey, Cassius, first one to catch 1,000 mosquitoes wins!" shouted Bacchus, the second youngest, to his brother.

"You're worse than Shade, you know that?" Responded the humorless eldest brother. "At least he's managed to settle down and find a mate."

"Hey, relax, I'm just trying to get you to loosen up."

"Quiet!" barked Windsling, the leader and eldest member of the troupe. "We may attract some unwanted attention. Don't forget that there are still some owls who will attack us on sight, day or not."

"Where _is_ Shade, anyway?" whispered Dionysus, the youngest, after a long period.

Gaius, the second eldest of the brothers, pulled up alongside him. "Oh, he's back at Tree Haven tending to… What was her name again? Mara? Miranda?"

"Marina." Cassius responded curtly.

"Right, thanks. I hear she's expecting."

"Well, yeah, Shade's only been telling everyone in Tree Haven!" Bacchus responded.

"I remember when your father was expecting you, Cassius." Windsling responded wistfully. "He was much the same way."

"What about when he was expecting us?" Bacchus and Dionysus queried.

"He was proud, but there's nothing like when you're expecting your firstborn. You feel as if the whole world should know about it."

"Ah. So, Bacchus, is your offer still good? I'm thinking of taking you up on it." Dionysus asked with a hint of playfulness.

"Oh, yeah."

"So, what're the stakes?"

"Loser has to bathe the winner for a month. Oh, and tigermoths are ten points each."

"You are so on!" Dionysus chuckled as the two of them swooped, dove, and banked through the forest.

"I've got to check this out." Gaius chimed in. "Hey, guys, wait up!"

"Windsling, we'll have to rendezvous back at Tree Haven. I'll go after them." Cassius stated grimly. _If it weren't for me, those fools would have killed themselves a long time ago,_ he thought to himself as he raced after them. It wasn't long before they heard the call of fellow bats beckoning them. The urge to find these fellow bats was so strong, even Cassius couldn't deny it.

As Windsling continued hunting just below the tree line, he heard panicky voices cry out for him. As he flew closer, the cries stopped. He followed the remnants of sound to a small shrub. As he searched the area, he noticed prints in the ground larger than himself. _Humans_, he thought to himself when, all of a sudden, a great wind kicked up as the forest was flooded by light from a human flying machine.

"Shade, Celeste just shifted," Marina stated sweetly as she hung from her roost, her belly swollen with the promise of an infant, "want to feel?"

Shade knew he should be out hunting, but they wouldn't leave for another week, which meant plenty of time for gathering his strength, plus he was still worn out from the ordeal down south. Having roused from hibernation with the last of them, he was surprised at how rotund Marina's stomach had grown. "_Aurora_ moved?" he asked as he gently wrapped his wings around her, a gentle squirm coming from inside her waist.

"Shade," Ariel said as she roosted next to her son, "I have some bad news. Your brothers have vanished."


	2. Time's Passage

Shade searched night and day for his four older brothers. Secretly, he knew they were alive _somewhere._ The only problem was, Windsling, having been momentarily blinded by the light and noise from the flying machine, had no idea what direction they'd been taken in. _If only I knew,_ Shade thought to himself. His mind had been cluttered with if-onlies the last few days. _If only I'd gone with them…If only they'd stayed…If only…If only…_ Of course, time passed and before long it was time to head to Stone Hold. Soon, common sense took over Shade, the same kind of common sense that made a lonely and expectant Ariel who'd been waiting patiently for her mate at Hibernaculum forlornly return to Tree Haven heartbroken. He was forced to abandon his search. It was a dejected Shade who traveled with the male colony to their roost.

All his life, Griffin had heard about how his father had never given up hope that his brothers were out there. Even though he knew it to be impossible, Griffin had to admit that there was a small part of him that somehow hoped he'd get to meet them someday. Three years had passed since he lost his father, he just had started a family, and his grandparents, thanks to their longevity, had been made chief elders at Tree Haven and Stone Hold. Surprisingly, even though Cassiel was the older of the two, he still wasn't the oldest chief Silverwing elder. That honor, at least according to recent memory, belonged to Frieda, who reigned over the females for the better part of fifteen years before passing away at the ripe old age of twenty.

Now, about ten wingbeats away from the cave mouth, he watched the ebb and flow of the ocean as the dawn chorus broke out. For weeks he'd waited for the messengers to return with news from his mate. "Okay," he muttered to himself, "this is a waiting for messengers to return with news of my family kind of situation. Stop that," he added, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, "you're just worrying yourself. After all, what's the worst that could happen? Well, they could have been intercepted by a Vampyrum. A Vampyrum who knew that they had news about the grandchildren of both the elders and held them captive and threatened them with death unless they agreed to rat us out."

As if on cue, three males came in from the left and banked toward the mouth of Stone Hold. "Rowan, Falstaff! Have you seen Luna?" he called out to them.

"Sorry, no." Falstaff answered as they roosted.

"What about you, Hector?"

"Actually, yes. She's doing well."

"And..?" Griffin asked expectantly.

"She gave birth to triplets. Congratulations, dad." He replied, stifling a yawn.

"Males? Females? How are they? C'mon, tell me." He begged anxiously.

"One male and two healthy females"

"What about the male?"

A worried look crossed Hector's face. "He is quite undersized. I hate to say it, but he may not survive."

"What are their names?"

"The females are named Aurora and Celeste, and the male's Shadow." He added, stifling another, bigger yawn.

Griffin was relieved that Luna had chosen those names, names he had wanted for his children to honor Shade. "Well, what are they like?"

"Oh, will you just shut _up_ already, _please_?!" Yelled Rowan, as he opened a sleepy eye. "Can't you see we're tired? We need sleep! We just traveled hundreds of thousands of wingbeats!"

"Rowan…" Warned Hector.

"Can't we get just a little shut-eye without being harangued? I mean, honestly-" he continued ranting testily

"ROWAN! ENOUGH!" Grumbling to himself, Rowan finally wrapped his wings around himself and closd his eyes. Turning to Griffin, Hector added, "You'll have to forgive him. I'm sorry, and I hate to be rude, but we _are_ tired, and do need some rest. If you still want, I'll be more than happy to answer all your questions tomorrow night." He added as he closed his eyes for the day.

_Of course Falstaff and Rowan wouldn't talk to me about Luna, or anything else, for that matter. We were kits together and they still treat me like dirt. It's not like I returned alive and unharmed from the Underworld. I didn't bring Luna back from the dead or anything. _He thought bitterly to himself._ Why did I have to be descended from the same bat who survived being lost in a storm, returned to the colony with only a sound map and one other bat for company, figured out about the humans trying to destroy us, rescued hundreds of bats, AND helped fulfill Nocturna's promise? Listen to me. I must be more tired than I thought._ Griffin continued as he finally allowed himself from rest.

The next day, Griffin found out all he wanted to know: how big they were, who they looked more like, their traits, etc. He apologized profusely to Hector for hounding him, but the six year-old bat was more than happy to answer any questions the younger one had. "Look, if you… wait." Hector started as he raced after an unsuspecting tiger moth, scooped it up with his tail and swatted it into his mouth. Returning, he stated, "Look, if you want to get to know them, they should be arriving any week now."

"How do you know this?"

"Let's just say that there can be advantages to being deformed _and_ having a roost near the meeting place for the elders." He added with a grin as swiveled his exceptionally large ears.

Weeks came and went, and Griffin grew more and more impatient. Finally, not long before the frost came, he heard the rustling of wings and the voices of bats.

A/N: The females? Or his uncles? You'll have to wait until chapter 3 to find out.


	3. Introductions

The two females chuckled as they performed swoops, barrel rolls, and other acrobatic feats of stratospheric skill. "Last one to Stone Hold is owl food!" Aurora, the eldest of the triplets yelled out to her sister.

"You're on!" Celeste returned

"Now, ladies, stay were I can see you." Their mother replied.

"Aw, mom, you never let us have any fun." Replied Celeste.

"Maybe you better listen to what mommy said." Came a weak little voice from Luna's belly.

"Who said you could talk?" Asked Aurora.

"Yeah, you can't even fly yet, _runt_." Celeste added.

"Now, children, just because Shadow's wings are underdeveloped doesn't mean he doesn't matter."

"Mama, you always take his side."

"Because you always pick on him. It's not his fault he's small. If one of you was getting picked on, I'd stand up for you as well. I love all my children equally. Now apologize to your brother."

"We're sorry." They responded in chorus unenthusiastically.

"Mama's male." Aurora added under her breath.

As he clung to his mother, Shadow wept. He hated that he'd been born small. His sisters were always picking on him. He also disliked being mollycoddled and being fed bugs his mother had mulched up herself. The only reason he put up with it was because he was too weak to fly or stick up for himself. He'd been practicing flying while alone at Tree Haven, but always while no one was looking, and it was usually no more than ten wingbeats, with the exception of the time he almost doubled it. His mother had been so worried about him. When she'd returned from hunting that night, she'd found him crumpled in a heap, barely breathing, clammy, deathly pale, and with almost no pulse. The elders did all they could. Eventually his heart rate and breathing started quickening. Three nights later, he came to, groggy and with a massive headache, but otherwise unharmed. Ever since then, Luna took him with her when she went hunting. "I hate being born small." He stated ruefully, his throat thick with anguish as he dug his face into her warm comforting fur and took in her smell.

"I know you do, baby." Luna stated comfortingly.

"Will I ever be as strong as you say daddy was?"

"Sure." She stated uncertainly. She added, "If it makes you feel any better, daddy wasn't sure he'd be as strong as Grandpa Shade, and look what happened."

"I wish I could have met Grandpa Shade."

"He was a great bat. You know, in a way, you were named after him."

"Why didn't you name me 'Shade', then?"

"Because we also wanted you to be your own bat, leave your own set of echoes in time. Did you know he was born a runt, too?"

Shadow's ears pricked at this news. "Grandpa Shade? Didn't he defeat, like, thirty owls at once?"

"According to your father, it was only six, but that's still a mighty impressive number. He also brought us back the sun and rescued hundreds of bats. Now get some rest. Don't worry; we'll be there in a few hours." Shadow's heart lightened at this news, and he smiled as he gripped his mother closer. "There he is." Luna said as she said as she singled out a male bat.

"Dad!" The adolescent females called out as they raced to their father.

"Aurora? Celeste?" Griffin asked as he dropped from their roost and turning around. "Kits!" He added as he and his grandfather swooped to meet them. Soon the air was filled with males rushing to meet their families. "Which one's which?" He asked as he drew near.

"I'm Aurora!" Stated the one with the longer wings.

"And I'm Celeste!" Added the one with the smaller ears.

"I've been waiting so long to meet you! Where's Shadow?" Griffin asked, worried, as usual.

"The weakling's clinging to mom." Aurora replied.

Flicking her with his wing, Griffin admonished, "Don't talk about your brother that way."

"Yes, sir." They responded with humility.

"Just like mom." Aurora muttered.

"I know, right?" Confirmed Celeste.

Winging his way over to his beloved mate, Griffin noticed a small, shivering bundle clutching to her like the two of them were the last bats on Earth. "Shadow, do you want to say hi to daddy?" Luna asked as the three of them roosted.

A little eye peered out from Luna's belly before the face buried itself back into her torso. "No." Came a scared little voice.

"It's ok; he's just a little shy."

"I don't blame him. Don't worry, little guy, there's no reason to be afraid." Griffin responded. Shadow just clung closer to Luna. "I missed you." He added, nuzzling his mate.

"I missed you, too. It's been too long."

That morning, as the bats started roosting with their families, Griffin surveyed the cave. He'd forgotten how many Silverwings there were in the colony. Looking around, he saw Cassiel and Ariel nuzzling, Skye and Rowan with their newborn Odysseus, Falstaff with his mate Artemis, Luna's sister, and their twins Diana and Apollo; Chinook and his mate Persephone, along with their daughter Hera and her mate Zeus, who were roosting with _their_ son Heracles, the twin elders Helen and Circe, and hundreds of other families, just to name a few.

A few days later, and the colony found themselves on the move again, this time making the final part of the migration. The way was long and treacherous, but they made it without losing a single bat, although it was a miracle Shadow had survived the journey. Days later, and suddenly they heard the roar of falling water smashing against rocks hundreds of feet below. Griffin's heart gave a leap. At long last they'd arrived.

"Hang on tight!" Luna yelled to Shadow. Feeling his claws pinch deeper into her fur, Luna pulled herself into a climb with the rest of the colony as Griffin swooped underneath them, ready to catch Shadow at a moment's notice. Flapping violently, they followed the colony to an outcropping that hung over the mouth of the cave like some giant stone branch.

A few days later, just as the colony was finally settling down for winter, there came a sudden commotion at the mouth of the cave. Soon the air was filled with bats, Griffin's echovison a silver blur from the cacophony of sound created by wings and voices.

"They've returned!" observed one bat.

"I thought they were dead." Pondered another.

"No, I saw them and they're very much alive." Stated another.

"Who? Who's returned? Who's alive?" Griffin queried as he lit from his roost. It didn't take long to see, though, because soon he saw his father conversing with a bat he didn't recognize who lay spread-eagle facing upwards on the floor while three other equally unfamiliar bats were being attended to.

"Grandpa, who are these bats?" he asked as he landed on all fours next to Cassiel.

Looking from Griffin to the stranger, Cassiel stated, "This is my grandson, Griffin."

"You must be Shade's son." Stated the newcomer.

"Yes, he is." Added Cassiel. Looking at Griffin, he gestured toward the other three bats as he mentioned, "These are three of your uncles, and this," he finalized, "is my best and oldest friend in the world, Icarus."

A/N: Icarus alive? One brother missing? What happens next? Find out in the next chapter.


End file.
